Federalist Society’s Influence on Courts Is Bad for Democracy
Peggy Quince and Lauren Stiller Rikleen of Lawyers Defending American Democracy examine the Federalist Society’s influence over state and federal judicial selection. They say originalist judges are problematic for democracy by looking to what the framers would have done.
Lawyers Group Asks Court to Punish an Author of Trump Electors Scheme
An ethics complaint in New York against Kenneth Chesebro is the latest example of legal troubles for lawyers who helped Donald J. Trump try to overturn the 2020 election.
A group of prominent attorneys on Wednesday asked attorney regulators in New York to investigate lawyer Kenneth Chesebro in connection with former U.S. President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 electoral loss to Joe Biden.
Supporters of Army Col. Yevgeny “Eugene” Vindman are urging the White House to allow the Pentagon whistleblower to retire at his current rank when he retires Wednesday, acknowledging unfair treatment which he has received in recent years.
Both Vindman brothers have become politically polarizing figures since Trump’s first impeachment trial, where the former president was ultimately acquitted of charges that he pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in 2019 to help with political attacks against Biden in exchange for foreign aid.
President Biden is facing calls to allow Col. Yevgeny “Eugene” Vindman, who alongside his twin brother Alexander blew the whistle on former President Trump’s July 2019 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, to retire with the title of colonel.
Gary Ratner, LDAD's co-founder, authors an opinion piece repudiating Republican Florida state Rep. Anthony Sabatini assertion that Liz Cheney is not "smart" for speaking out against former president Donald Trump’s Big Lie.
Lawyers for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton will argue Wednesday in court that a judge should drop a disciplinary case filed against him by the State Bar of Texas alleging he knowingly lied and attempted to mislead the U.S. Supreme Court in an effort to overturn the 2020 election results.
Religious liberty means that all religions are able to thrive in harmony. It does not mean that a majority of SCOTUS justices who share a religion should be able to demand that other religions subjugate their own beliefs to the majority’s will.
Even though Bannon's conviction is for contempt, rather than for an underlying crime, the principle remains the same. For more than two centuries, America has been a society bound by the rule of law, not the rule of men -- and we need to keep it that way.
Even though Bannon's conviction is for contempt, rather than for an underlying crime, the principle remains the same. For more than two centuries, America has been a society bound by the rule of law, not the rule of men -- and we need to keep it that way.
“Dereliction of duty” is a serious accusation, and based on what has already emerged in the committee’s hearings, one that fits. It is beyond question that President Trump was aware in real time of the violence at the Capitol and that he did nothing for hours on end to call off the mob he had helped to summon. So argues, our colleagues Dennis Aftergut and Eugene Fidell.
From its historic rollback of abortion rights to limiting regulations on power plants' carbon dioxide emissions, the U.S. Supreme Court is stirring up controversy and anger. LDAD's Lauren Rikleen weighs in.
Prior to this term, Americans mostly were comfortable with the idea that the US Supreme Court would ensure their constitutional rights were protected against government overreach, say James F. McHugh and Lauren Stiller Rikleen of Lawyers Defending American Democracy.
The unprecedented leak of an apparent draft opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court indicating it is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade should be a wake-up call to the legal profession, says leadership consultant Lauren Stiller Rikleen. Sitting on the sidelines is no longer an option, she writes, as the fundamental right of women to make decisions affecting their own bodies is at risk.
This Houston Chronicle article provides an update regarding the status of a complaint filed by Lawyers Defending American Democracy and 16 Texas lawyers in July, 2021.
It is particularly painful to watch not only war crimes committed by the Russian assault on the Ukrainian people, but the return in the 21st century of an unjustified attack in a region where civilians have endured a history of ethnic cleansing, mass casualties, and genocide.
The country deserves a confirmation process for Judge Jackson that is incisive and informative. Americans will have a crucial opportunity to watch the interplay of difficult dynamics that include politics, bias, and entrenched institutions.
Deep-seated biases are evident in commentary questioning whether President Biden’s vow to appoint a Black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court conflicts with finding the most qualified jurist for the role, says leadership consultant Lauren Stiller Rikleen.
Data shows that our democracy is “backsliding” and our rule of law is in decline. Yet our nation’s lawyers—the profession most trained to help—largely remain on the sidelines instead of taking a stance.
A legal organization filed an ethics complaint on Thursday seeking to have a lawyer, John Eastman, investigated for advising former President Trump in efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
Eastman wrote a now infamous memo that suggested then-Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to reject electors from key battleground states that flipped blue for President Joe Biden, resulting in Trump's Electoral College loss.
The petitioners claim that Eastman’s effort to subvert the will of the voters amounts to a violation of California Rule of Professional Conduct 8.4(c), which prohibits a lawyer to “engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or reckless or intentional misrepresentation.”
A lawyers’ group has filed the third ethics complaint against Trump lawyer John Eastman with the California bar, alleging misconduct when he colluded with others in attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and keep Donald Trump in office for a second term.
More than 1,300 signers in nearly all 50 states and the District of Columbia have signed in support of the complaint, which asks the State Bar of California to investigate and, if appropriate, sanction Mr. Eastman for violations of the California Rules of Professional Conduct.
A legal group filed a bar complaint against conservative attorney John Eastman on Thursday claiming he violated legal ethics rules while serving as an attorney for former President Donald Trump.
“We’re lawyers. If we’re not speaking up for this issue, who will?” says Lauren Stiller Rikleen of Lawyers Defending American Democracy, a group pushing for more attorneys and firms to take action against the restrictions.
Bloomberg Law has published an op-ed by LDAD steering committee members James McHugh, John Montgomery, and interim Executive Director Lauren Rikleen. The piece considers the fate of former Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, who is the target of LDAD's most recent ethics complaint.
Jeffrey Clark, a former top environmental lawyer at the Trump justice department accused of plotting with Trump to undermine the 2020 election results in Georgia and other states, is facing ethics investigations in Washington that could lead to possible disbarment, as well as a watchdog inquiry that might result in a criminal referral.
A group of legal heavyweights on Tuesday asked the disciplinary panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals to investigate a former Department of Justice (DOJ) official who allegedly sought to use his official position in the federal government to overturn former President Trump’s election defeat.
A group of prominent attorneys on Tuesday filed an ethics complaint against Jeffrey Bossert Clark, a former top Justice Department official who is under investigation for allegedly plotting to help former President Donald Trump overturn the 2020 presidential election.
The former head of the U.S. Department of Justice's civil and environment divisions during the Trump administration should face serious sanctions for his "extraordinary" and "unethical" conduct during the 2020 presidential election.
In DC, a group called Lawyers Defending American Democracy demands accountability for Jeffrey Clark, who attempted to persuade his bosses to send a letter to election officials in Georgia — and then the rest of the swing states — urging them to let the legislature override the will of the voters.
The State Bar of Texas has agreed to investigate Attorney General Ken Paxton after four former state bar presidents complained that his support of a lawsuit to overturn the 2020 presidential election should prevent him from practicing law in the state.
The State Bar of Texas has agreed to investigate an ethics complaint filed against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R). In a letter, the Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel of the State Bar of Texas told complainant Gershon Gary Ratner, co-founder of LDAD, that his late July ethics complaint–filed along with 15 other Lone Star State attorneys–contained facts alleging that Paxton had engaged in professional misconduct.
A group of 16 lawyers who filed an ethics complaint against Attorney General Ken Paxton said Monday that the state bar was looking into its professional misconduct claim against the sitting attorney general. The group includes four former presidents of the State Bar of Texas and was organized by the group Lawyers Defending American Democracy.
A 31-page complaint was filed last week with the State Bar of Texas by 16 Texas attorneys, including four past presidents of the State Bar of Texas, as well as legal scholars and legal-ethics experts.
Gershon Ratner, co-founder of LDAD, explained the lawsuit did not have "standing," as the Supreme Court inevitably determined. Ratner described Paxton's lawsuit as "a prescription for an autocratic president to perpetuate his power indefinitely against the will of the voters."
Sixteen Texas lawyers, including four former State Bar of Texas presidents, have filed a complaint urging bar regulators to suspend or permanently disbar Texas Attorney General Warren Kenneth Paxton Jr. from practice.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has bigger problems than a bar complaint. Most notably, he’s under indictment for securities fraud and is facing a whistleblower allegations from his own staff that he took bribes and abused his office. And still, demands for your ouster from the legal profession by 31 eminent professionals, including four past presidents of the state bar, is never a good look.
Asserting Paxton has brought “dishonor” to his fellow Texas lawyers and the legal profession, the group of 16 prominent Texas lawyers and the group Lawyers Defending American Democracy said in the complaint that Paxton has engaged in a pattern of “serious violations” of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct.
Four former presidents of the State Bar of Texas are part of a group of lawyers who on Wednesday urged the bar to reprimand Attorney General Ken Paxton for attempting to overturn presidential election results and allegedly encouraging participation in the Jan. 6 Captiol riot.
A nonpartisan group of lawyers released a statement on Monday in opposition to the deployment of non-federalized National Guard troops to the border by South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), concluding that the states are “way out of their lane.”
If privately funded commandeering of the armed forces to enforce Tucker Carlson’s fever dreams sounds like a dystopian nightmare, then you are paying the appropriate amount of attention. Lawyers Defending American Democracy thinks this is a problem too, highlighting the disturbing conceit that patrolling an international border is “state” business as opposed to a federal prerogative with massive foreign policy implications.
Giuliani’s troubles with the appellate division of the Supreme Court of New York began last January, when [...] Lawyers Defending American Democracy, presented a detailed complaint alleging that Giuliani “knowingly propagated a false narrative of election fraud to delegitimize ... Biden’s presidential victory and to undermine public confidence in the national electoral process.”
A group of attorneys called Lawyers Defending American Democracy called on a New York disciplinary panel to immediately suspend Giuliani’s law license pending an investigation.
Giuliani’s claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election have landed him as a co-defendant in multiple defamation cases[.]
Too few lawyers have entered the fray to protect and defend the rule of law, let alone critique or hold accountable lawyers and elected officials who participated in the corruption of the Justice Department and the efforts to nullify the results of the 2020 election.
“Gross misconduct by members of the bar — be they private attorneys or the Attorney General of the United States — seriously stains the reputation of the legal profession with the general public, and also, no doubt, tempts other lawyers to skirt ethical boundaries."
As corporate leaders continue a public pressure campaign against changes to Georgia’s voting law that have sparked a national debate, the country’s largest law firms so far are staying on the sidelines.
Lawyers should use their powerful and influential platforms to advocate for the protection of the rule of law and to fight against voter suppression efforts in the United States, according to an open letter signed by Paul Weiss’ chairman and hundreds of other attorneys.
The national organization Lawyers Defending American Democracy has issued an Open Letter calling on law firms, bar associations and law schools to devote resources to protecting and expanding voter rights in the midst of efforts in state legislatures around the country to curtail access to the polls, including new restrictions passed in the state of Georgia.
Jennifer Rodgers, member of the City Bar’s Task Force on the Rule of Law and CNN legal analyst, speaks with Christine Chung, a trial and appellate attorney, former federal prosecutor and steering committee member of Lawyers Defending American Democracy about disciplinary complaints against Rudy Giuliani.
The complaints against Mr. Giuliani allege serious misconduct,” said the city bar association in an 11-page report, and they “appear to be substantiated by extensive evidence—consisting in large part of Mr. Giuliani’s own statements.
The New York City Bar Association backs separate ethics complaints filed in January by former New York State Bar Association president Michael Miller and by the bipartisan nonprofit Lawyers Defending American Democracy that contend Giuliani intentionally and repeatedly crossed ethical and legal lines.
The complaints against Mr. Giuliani allege serious misconduct,” said the city bar association in an 11-page report, and they “appear to be substantiated by extensive evidence—consisting in large part of Mr. Giuliani’s own statements.
“Not a single word in that amendment, or in any other, gives the vice president any role whatsoever in choosing which votes to count let alone the extraordinary, unilateral power to select who the next president should be, regardless of the outcome of votes in the various states,” the group said in a statement in January.
Donald Trump tried to steal the election and prevent the peaceful transfer of power. And 43 Republican senators said that’s OK when they voted to acquit him in the impeachment trial. It was time to “stop the steal,” as the former president’s allies so often shout. But it was the Senate that refused.
This February, we mark Black History Month at a time of sharpened focus on institutional racism, the Black Lives Matter movement and a raging pandemic that has disproportionately impacted minority communities. Read the latest opinion piece by LDAD committee member Lauren Stiller Rikleen.
More than 3,100 lawyers, including a former Attorney General, 14 ex-federal judges and three dozen former prosecutors at the office Rudy Giuliani once led, have joined a call for his law license to be revoked.
New York State Bar Association leaders and academics hit Rudy Giuliani with an ethics complaint Thursday, joining others in calling on the bar to suspend the former New York City mayor’s license and investigate potential professional violations for persistently touting false voter fraud claims while spearheading ex-President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
Dozens of prominent lawyers have signed a formal complaint seeking the suspension of Rudolph W. Giuliani’s law license — the latest and loudest in a series of calls to censure him for his actions as President Donald J. Trump’s personal attorney.
A national lawyers group on Thursday filed an ethics complaint against Rudy Giuliani that asked a New York court panel to suspend the Trump ally’s law license and undertake a review of his role in promoting false election fraud claims that some argue fueled the insurrection at the Capitol.
A legal advocacy group called Thursday for Rudy Giuliani to be investigated and potentially lose his license to practice law, filing an ethics complaint against the attorney with the Grievance Committee of the New York State Bar after the former New York City mayor led former President Donald Trump’s legal campaign to overturn the election and pushed baseless election fraud claims.
A lawyers’ group filed an ethics complaint against Rudy Giuliani with New York’s courts, calling for him to be investigated and his law license suspended over his work promoting former President Donald Trump’s false allegations over the 2020 election.
A group of prominent lawyers has asked New York’s judiciary to suspend Rudy Giuliani’s law licence for making false claims in post-election lawsuits and urging Donald Trump’s supporters to engage in “trial by combat” shortly before they stormed the US Capitol.
A national group of lawyers filed an ethics complaint against Rudy Giuliani on Thursday, calling on the state of New York to suspend his law license following the efforts to undermine the 2020 election and spread lies from Donald Trump about widespread voter fraud causing his presidential reelection loss.
“The debate over a second Trump impeachment has underlined the false equivalence that brought about Trump’s election four years ago. Some pundits and politicians argue that, with mere days remaining in Trump’s interminable term, it is time to forget about accountability.”
Lawyers Defending American Democracy (LDAD), a group that claims to represent 5,000 lawyers nationwide, has publicly asked for disciplinary bodies responsible for overseeing lawyers to censure Republican Texas Representative Louie Gohmert and any other lawyers who supported Gohmert’s lawsuit seeking to overturn the results of the presidential election in favor of President Donald Trump.
Rarely, if ever, has a president wound up his term of office with as many people thinking ill of him as will be the case when Donald Trump returns to private life. The grave flaws of his administration have already been chronicled. What hasn’t been much noticed, however, is the positive impact he has had on one important part of American life: public engagement.
It was a ‘specious suit’ with ‘absurd’ premise, and the attorneys involved, including the Tyler congressman, should be punished, Lawyers Defending American Democracy says.
LDAD Co-Founder Scott Harshbarger & Dennis Aftergut caution that “those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Follow the link below to read their latest Opinion piece for The Hill.
L. Scott Harshbarger doesn’t mince words in condemning the attorneys who have spearheaded President Trump’s failed efforts to undo the results of the 2020 election. “Many lawyers and their clients have tried to inject politics and partisan self-interest into this and achieve a result which is essentially a coup,” the former two-term attorney general says.
“President Trump’s barrage of litigation is a pretext for a campaign to undermine public confidence in the outcome of the 2020 election, which inevitably will subvert constitutional democracy,” read the open letter compiled by the group Lawyers Defending American Democracy.
LDAD Co-founder Scott Harshbarger joined the the Bill Press Podcast to discuss why the eighteen Attorney Generals who joined Texas AG Paxton’s now dismissed lawsuit to overturn the election should be disciplined and sanctioned. Along with host Bill Press, Scott is joined by Les Francis, former Deputy White House Chief of Staff for Jimmy Carter.
LDAD Steering Committee member Eugene R. Fidell suggests actions Congress could institute to begin reforming the Presidential pardon.
Of the 126 House Republicans who signed the brief supporting the frivolous Trumpian Supreme Court lawsuit, 32 are lawyers. The bar should sanction.
LDAD Steering Committee member Dennis Aftergut authors a letter published by the New York Times on the importance of civic virtue.
LDAD Steering Committee member Eugene R. Fidell’s latest op-ed reads in part, “Scorched earth is what a nation’s military forces do in combat operations against an invader’s forces. It is not what an elected government in a democratic country does when it is voted from office.”
LDAD co-founder Scott Harsbarger and LDAD Steering Committee members Lauren Stiller Rikleen, and Dennis Aftergut argue that if disciplinary authorities do not address President Trump’s attorneys’ ethical violations, the rules of professional conduct will be regarded as a meaningless standard to other lawyers and to the public.
The Dallas Morning News ran a story on our latest call for bar condemnation and disciplinary action against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the initiator of the dangerous and frivolous Supreme Court petition.
“More than 1,500 lawyers — including law professors, retired judges, and former heads of bar associations — issued a public letter calling the actions of Giuliani and the other attorneys pushing these baseless claims “a disgrace.” The signees urged disciplinary bodies to investigate their actions, and bar associations to publicly condemn them.”
More than 1,500 attorneys have signed an open letter calling on bar associations to condemn President Trump’s campaign attorneys and urging bar disciplinary authorities to investigate the attorneys’ conduct, the group Lawyers Defending American Democracy has announced.
About 1,500 lawyers and counting have signed a letter condemning President Donald Trump’s campaign legal team, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, for spreading falsehoods and “a pattern of frivolous court claims” as well as working to undermine the 2020 election.
HuffPost features coverage of LDAD’s Open Letter calling on Bar authorities to condemn and launch investigations into President Trump’s campaign lawyers.
“You don’t need a law degree to understand that the clock may be ticking on some Trump lawyers’ licenses. Rudolph Giuliani and Joseph DiGenova are two whose conduct has raised questions about their fitness to practice law.” Co-authored by LDAD Steering Committee member Dennis Aftergut makes the case for disbarring Giuliani and DiGenova.
Arguing that “a license to practice law is not a license to lie,” nearly 1,500 lawyers issued a letter on Monday calling on bar associations across the country to investigate and, if needed, penalize the members of President Trump’s legal team, including the architect of his post-election strategy, Rudolph W. Giuliani.
When it emerged that Republican state officials from Michigan had been summoned to the White House in connection with President Trump’s already desperate struggle to unravel the results of this year’s general election, I thought of The Burghers of Calais. How else to capture their defeat—ironically at the hands of the leader of their own party, rather than some foe.
LDAD Steering Committee member Eugene R. Fidell writes, “Shakespeare’s “A Winter’s Tale” includes perhaps the most famous stage direction in the history of theater: “Exit, pursued by a bear.” The character pursued, Antigonus, comes to a bad end. Worse yet, it happens off stage.
LDAD applauds the New York City Bar Association and its President Sheila S. Boston for the statement it has issued in response to what they call “troubling and inappropriate conduct” by President Trump and his officials.
LDAD Steering Committee member Eugene R. Fidell wonders what must be going on in President Donald Trump’s mind as he files an “infinite number of lawsuits” in a futile attempt at a “Hail Mary.”
LDAD Steering Committee member Dennis Aftergut issues a call to arms: “If we survive this moment of danger, the US must attend to the difficult process of legislative, perhaps even constitutional, reform to prevent the next assault on democracy. In the meantime, we need an all hands on deck approach, mobilizing political leaders and civil society that the US has for a long time used to promote democracy abroad.”
LDAD Steering Committee member Dennis Aftergut co-authors an op-ed about the President’s shattering of time-tested norms — most recently, his refusal to facilitate the orderly transition of power.
Donald Trump’s presidency is ending the way it began: with a handoff between administrations that could have been smooth but is instead confused, mired in controversy, and less useful for good governance than it could have been. So argues LDAD Steering Committee member Eugene R. Fidell in a new op-ed featured in the The Bulwark.
Laureen Rikleen, LDAD Steering Committee member, issues a powerful, critical and timely call to action for leaders of our profession. “Our country is at particular peril if its lawyers fail to recognize their unique role in protecting democracy.”
LDAD Steering Committee member Dennis Aftergut co-authors a new article celebrating the citizens and leaders who have used their voices and platforms to stand up to the the President’s maneuvers to distort our most precious right—the vote.
Lawyers nationwide are demanding that their colleagues stop representing President Trump since he is falsely claiming widespread voter fraud and such unfounded allegations are in violation of his duties under the US Constitution. The Nov. 10 open letter is signed by more than 1,100 lawyers.
“The country and the world are watching to see how America responds to the President’s shameful attack on the legitimacy of America’s voting process,” the nonprofit Lawyers Defending American Democracy wrote in an open letter signed by over 1,000 attorneys this week.
“A group of 1,000 attorneys, including retired federal and state judges, state attorneys general and law professors criticized the Trump administration over baseless claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election”
“Amid widespread condemnation and a protest called for outside the front doors of a New York law firm, the national bipartisan group Lawyers Defending American Democracy has released an open letter intending to increase pressure on attorneys and firms supporting claims of election fraud and calling out U.S. senators and the U.S. attorney general for what it characterizes as their complicity in obstructing the 2020 presidential election process.”
“Prestigious law firms are skating close to the ethical edge in filing lawsuits which undermine faith in the outcome of the presidential election.” So says a new Letter to the Editor by LDAD Steering Committee member Fred Lowenfels.